Bill Nye teams up with White House to highlight how Biden’s economic agenda will help combat climate crisis

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By Kate Sullivan, CNN

Bill Nye will come to the White House on Tuesday to help President Joe Biden promote his economic agenda and highlight how it will help combat the climate crisis, a White House official tells CNN.

Nye — better known as “Bill Nye, the Science Guy” — will film a video with the President to highlight the effect of both the bipartisan infrastructure bill as well as the larger climate and economic package to tackle the climate crisis and create jobs, the official said.

The video will be “short-form digital piece,” and will be posted on Nye’s TikTok and Instagram accounts, which have a combined following of more than 11 million people.

The video with Nye comes as the White House is sellling the bipartisan infrastructure package to the American public. Biden will travel to Baltimore on Wednesday to tout its benefits, the first stop on what’s expected to be a traveling tour after the House of Representatives passed the piece of legislation last week.

Nye has long been raising the alarm about the climate crisis and its effects on the planet. Earlier this year, Nye testified before Congress about the impacts of climate change and argued it was time for the government to “invest in a big way” to curb its effects.

His television program “Bill Nye the Science Guy” has helped educate children on a wide range of scientific topics.

Biden is expected to sign the $1.2 trillion bipartisan infrastructure bill into law “very soon,” White House principal deputy press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said Monday, but is waiting until Congress is back in session and members are in Washington so they can attend.

It will deliver $550 billion of new federal investments in America’s infrastructure over five years, touching everything from bridges and roads to the nation’s broadband, water and energy systems.

The second part of Biden’s economic agenda — the massive package to expand the social safety net and combat the climate crisis — remains a work in progress. On Monday, Biden expressed optimism that Congress would pass the legislation but noted it would likely be “a tough fight” to get it across the finish line.

If passed, it would be the largest legislative investment on climate in US history. White House officials say it will cut a billion metric tons of US greenhouse gas emissions by 2030. The White House is also confident it would put the US track to meet Biden’s Paris Agreement goal: a 50-52% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions below 2005 levels by the end of the decade.

At the same time, activists at the United Nations Climate Summit in Glasgow have castigated the US and other rich nations for not doing more to combat climate change and have remained pessimistic about the chances the world can hit the goals set in the Paris climate agreement

Democrats are still negotiating the final details of the larger climate and economic package. It focuses on care for families, addressing the climate crisis, expanding access to health care, lowering costs for the middle class and tax reforms.

The bill would deliver nearly $570 billion in tax credits and investments aimed at combating climate change. It would offer tax credits to families that install solar rooftops or buy electric vehicles, for example. The investments are aimed at providing incentives to grow domestic supply chains in solar and wind industries.

The legislation also calls for creating 300,000 jobs by establishing a Civilian Climate Corps that works to conserve public lands and bolster community resiliency.

The-CNN-Wire
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